Haiti Voodoo

By Michael Norton, AP, 26 July 2003

PLAINE DU NORD, July 26 (AP)—Carrying candles and a heavy
spiritual debt, Josephine Derulien walked for 17 hours to reach this
small farming town, swollen by thousands of people during an annual
four-day pilgrimage.

The pilgrimage, one of the most important in the Voodoo religion,
began Wednesday with rituals to Ogou, the god of war, and ended
Saturday with rites to the goddess of love, Erzuli. This year’s
crowd of more than 10,000 was half the turnout of last year.

I swore I would make this pilgrimage, said Derulien, 30,
wearing a blue dress with a red kerchief, the traditional colors of
Ogou. I had a problem and it was solved. Now I’m here to pay
my debt.

Although millions still practice Voodoo—now a state-sanctioned
religion in Haiti—some are turning their backs on the religion
brought from Africa, testing other faiths as their Caribbean nation
grapples with growing instability and poverty.

An estimated 70 percent of Haiti’s 8.8 million people practice
Voodoo to some extent, including many who claim to be Catholic or
another religion.

But a growing number, estimated at 30 percent, identify themselves as
Protestant, said Andre Corten, a Canadian sociologist. This smaller
group adamantly oppose Voodoo, which is spelled Vodou in the French
and Creole spoken in Haiti.’

Voodoo requires sometimes pricey offerings to a pantheon of gods. In a
country where most people survive on less than $1 a day and where the
government hasn’t managed to improve conditions, the draw of a
cheaper religion is powerful.

Thousands of missionaries—many American—can be seen
everyday in Haiti proselytizing and trying to draw people away from
Voodoo. Many flock to evangelical Christian churches instead of Voodoo
temples.

The economic stagnation has cast a shadow over Voodoo, said
musician and Voodoo priest Ronald Aboudja Derenencourt, 48.

One young girl selling bananas along the pilgrimage route, about 6
miles south Cap-Haitien on the north coast, pleaded with pilgrims to
reject Voodoo.

Voodoo is no good, said Rose Jean, 12, whose family of six are
evangelical Christians. They don’t recognize Jesus.

The Catholic Church in the 1940’s waged a campaign to eradicate
Voodoo. Although unsuccessful, the religion was driven underground
for years and disparaged by foreigners as a hodge-podge of beliefs.

In April, however, the Haitian government officially sanctioned it,
allowing priests for the first time to legally perform marriages.

Many Voodoo practitioners have been wary of the step, fearful it was
taken to woo them to the government of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, whose popularity is waning with hard times.

Here we pray to everybody. Some pray to St. James, others to
Ogou, said Jean Joseph, 45, a farmer who made the pilgrimage but
prayed at the town’s Catholic church. You serve God or the
Devil as you like.

Not far from the church where Joseph and other others prayed, men and
women stripped down to their shorts, and plunged into a shallow mud
basin. They emerged in a trance and said they were transformed.

When I come out of the basin, I tremble. I feel the might of Ogou,
who empowers me all year long, said Voodoo priest Harvey Dorvil,
31.

Around the basin, Voodoo priests, priestesses, and witchdoctors
congregate, on the lookout for patients, whose ills they claim they
can cure with spells and herbal remedies.

Merchants sold everything from radios and clothing to straw hats and
religious items like candles, perfumes, amulets, and images of the
saints.

Most seek help for money or love troubles. Derulien, like many,
wouldn’t say what she had asked Ogou for.

Voodoo is our family faith, said Roseline Pierre, a 25-year-old
student nurse from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who was born in
Haiti. Its spirituality is powerful. You just have to dig deep
enough.